Huey P. Newton Gun Club Marches in Dallas To Protest Police Shootings

An alert FrontBurnervian points us to a Reason post about the Huey P. NewtonGun Club and its open-carry protest march through South Dallas. The group went into a restaurant carrying rifles, shotguns, and AR-15s. Some Dallas cops were eating there.

Naming a gun club after a co-founder of the Black Panthers and marching with long guns to protest police shootings struck me as — counterproductive? Is that the word? Needlessly confrontational?

But then I followed a link in that post to the cellphone video of two St. Louis cops gunning down 25-year-old Kajieme Powell on Tuesday. And I thought, My God, what is happening in our country? How can this happen? Naming a gun club after a co-founder of the Black Panthers and marching with long guns to protest police shootings starts to look reasonable. Necessary even.

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Comments

Paul

Very sad. A good example of why you shouldn’t approach cops in a menacing way, especially if they have their guns drawn and are telling you to stop.

Tim Rogers

True. Powell did approach the cops in a menacing way. He even said, “Shoot me.” I count nine shots, at least one of which was fired after Powell seemed very much no longer a menace — as in, lying on the sidewalk, dying. Then they cuffed his corpse.

wow

Interesting that the officers were not detaining witnesses for interviews.

EdPoe

Not defending the police in this instance, but I’m pretty sure that putting a suspect in handcuffs even after you shot him/her is standard operating procedure at any police department.

Mark Morrison

Good for them.

I am glad to see people waking up to the fact that civil rights and civil liberties belong to all of us, and that unless we present a unified front, they will be lost to all as well. I for one am proud to call them fellow patriots and citizens defending the rights of the people.

– A white, middle class NRA member.

Johnyalamo

If someone had a gun pointed at me and told me to stop what I was doing, even if I was chasing butterflies or something, I would stop. If TWO guys are pointing guns at me while, say, I’m possibly smoking a brisket, then I definitely would stop. Now if they were cops, I probably would have stopped way before the guns got pointed at me.

Brett Moore

I couldn’t tell from the video, but it appeared to me that the guns were drawn immediately upon their exiting the video.

Also, this guy looked pretty clearly mentally disturbed. So I guess the question becomes, if one has mental health issues enough to not understand the proper manner to react to police officers, is that essentially a death sentence?

Brett Moore

Exiting the car, not the video. That would be a much bigger story.

Johnyalamo

How are the cops supposed to determine whether a guy, possibly holding a weapon, is mentally ill or not in 17 seconds? Keep in mind they are cops, not psychiatrists.

Brett Moore

Frankly, I wish I had a better answer, and I’m sure we all do. All I know is that, I’m guessing based on training, their first reaction is deadly force.

Let me ask this: What happens in England, or France, or wherever we have a less militarized police force, when a crazy person is yielding a knife in public?

Brett Moore

Wielding. Christ, what is wrong with me today?

Brett Moore

Wielding. Christ, what is wrong with me today?

Paul

Sadly the man seems to have been high or demented, but that made him no less of a threat. The cops had mere moments to assess things. Once the shooting started, does it really matter if it was nine shots or eight? Or four? I imagine that adrenaline took over – its not like they waited a few minutes and then popped off a few more for good measure. People who don’t threaten or attack armed cops usually don’t get shot, regardless of race.

Tim Rogers

I think I agreed with you for most of my life, Paul. I’m not sure I do now.